Precise details of the mission or its destination were not disclosed, but from their base in Misawa the drones are much closer to North Korea and so can spend longer flying over the country if needed.

The U.S. Air Force’s 35th Fighter Wing said weather on June 6 was poor and ordinarily all airfield operations would have been canceled, but the drones were able to take off. That spotlighted “the Global Hawk’s ability to fly in adverse weather conditions,” it said. More >

One of the most popular YouTube channels carrying North Korean content appears to have closed.

DPRK Music Channel posted music videos of North Korean patriotic songs and traditional ballads, usually sourced from Korean Central TV. The channel had amassed more than 1.3 million views as of February this year, making it the number six most popular channel although within striking distance of the fifth- and fourth-ranked channels.

But visit its YouTube channel page today and all you see is a message saying the account has been deleted.

A message greets visitors to the DPRK Music Channel on YouTube informing them of its closure (Photo: NorthKoreaTech)

South Korea has stepped up propaganda radio broadcasts targeted at North Korea and attracted a fast response from the country.

Voice of Freedom, one of three government-run radio stations that broadcasts to the north, launched a tentative shortwave service at the beginning of May, but the signal is already being aggressively blocked by the North Korean authorities.

The station is operated by South Korea’s Ministry of Defense and has been broadcasting towards North Korea for years. Programming was halted in 2004 after an inter-Korean friendship accord but was resumed in 2010, shortly after the South Korean Cheonan corvette was sunk with the loss of 46 lives. South Korea accused the North of torpedoing the ship.

The Korea National Insurance Corp., North Korea’s state insurance company, has its own website.

The company, which in the past has been accused of orchestrating international insurance fraud, offers basic information about itself and its financial health. While the site appears to be new, the information on it in both English and Korean dates to only 2012.

The official financial information shows a business that’s growing — just be sure to read the chart from right to left — with the amount of premiums and net worth up every year since 2008. But net profits have been sliding in recent years, down 40 percent in the two year period from 2010 to 2012.

According to the data, which cannot be independently verified, the KNIC made a profit of 5.5 billion North Korean won in 2012 and its net worth was 61.3 billion won. That’s $42.6 million and $471.3 million respectively at the official exchange rate of 130 won to the U.S. dollar. At the black market exchange rate of 8,000 won to the dollar, those figures drop to $693,000 in profit and a net worth of $7.6 million.

The Korea National Insurance Corporation’s main financial indicators (Image: KNIC/NorthKoreaTech)

Almost 70 companies publicly traded on U.S. stock markets have found North Korean gold in their manufacturing supply chains.

Among the more prominent names are electronics companies IBM, HP, Garmin, Philips and Seagate, U.S. kitchenware retailer Willams Sonoma.

The discoveries were disclosed in reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that are the result of a new law that mandates companies audit their suppliers and identify sources of so-called conflict minerals: gold, tin, tungsten and tantalum.

The companies all named North Korea’s central bank as the source of some gold that made its way into their products.

Gold sourced from North Korea is identified in an IBM report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (Photo: North Korea Tech)

North Korea has strict controls on internal movement, a scarcity of private car ownership and almost no Internet users. And now it’s also got satellite navigation through Google Maps.

The service is available through the web and mobile apps and allows users to calculate travel time by car or foot between points of interest in the Google database. It’s limited to roads that have already been mapped out on the service.

“We encourage people from around the world to continue helping us improve the quality of these maps for everyone with Google Map Maker,” the company said in January 2013. “From this point forward, any further approved updates to the North Korean maps in Google Map Maker will also appear on Google Maps.”

As a result of that call for action, and perhaps additional information obtained by Google, users can now do things like this:

The route from Pyongyang to Panmunjon mapped by Google (NorthKoreaTech)

Four remaining members of the Japanese Red Army Faction terrorist group living on the outskirts of Pyongyang might not be enjoying as free a lifestyle as recently portrayed.

The four are the last members of a group of nine who hijacked JAL351, a Boeing 727, on March 31, 1970, and eventually took the aircraft to Pyongyang. They have been living in the so-called “Japanese village” since then.

Earlier in May, Japan’s Kyodo News published photographs of the village taken by journalist Reinin Shiino, who visited the area on the banks of the Taedong river in late April, according to the news agency.

One of the photographs shows group member Moriaki Wakabayashi accessing a computer. Another image shows three satellite dishes in the garden near one of the houses.

An image taken by Reinin Shiino and released by Kyodo News showing satellite dishes in the Japanese Village compound in North Korea (Reinin Shiino/Kyodo News)

North Korea’s state-run news agency issued a sharp criticism over the weekend of U.S. funding of technology projects that attack censorship.

The commentary, published on Saturday, points to dissatisfaction among the North Korean elite with U.S. funding of projects that enable the free flow of information and bypass Internet censorship.

It comes as U.S. State Dept.’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) is evaluating proposals for its latest round of funding aimed at human rights and democracy in North Korea. The DRL is offering up to $350,000 to organizations for projects targeted at the DPRK.

The heavily-fortified inter-Korean border at Imjingak, South Korea. (File / North Korea Tech)